Doctor Who: The Unanswered Questions, Part 1
by Lyanna Pond
Summary: Have you ever been frustrated when Doctor Who just leaves you hanging? Well, in this series of short stories, I will answer all your unanswered questions, picking up where the most recent Christmas special, the Time of the Doctor, left off. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

As the TARDIS was entering the time vortex, Clara examined the new doctor that stood before her. He acted as if nothing had changed, but he was so much older and less attractive. Granted, to him, he probably seemed much younger, as he had just spent hundreds of years aging in a different body. How could she possibly fancy this man though? Certainly he couldn't be the same man! It never would have worked anyway. He was married to a woman who may or may not actually be dead. She'd definitely have to ask about that at some point. First, however, she decided to ask a very simple question. "So, where are we going, Doctor?"

"We are searching for Gallifrey, of course!" responded the new man. "The painting, the crack, what Handles said before Trenzalore…" The Doctor sighed at the memory of his lost friends. "There's just so much hope that I could finally go home!"

"And what about me, Doctor?" replied Clara. "Where shall I go when you find home?"

The Doctor did not answer her question, but instead grinned in excitement. "I'm picking up a signal! The crack in the fabric of reality is now emitting an immense amount of energy and it's pulling us in! Hold on tight, Clara- we're headed to a different universe!"

The Doctor flicked a few switches and pressed a few buttons and Clara gripped the railing as the TARDIS spun wildly. "Is this safe?" she yelled. She did not fully trust this new Doctor yet.

"For anyone who can't tolerate the maximum energy of the time vortex, no," the Doctor replied, "but you are the impossible girl! You've been inside my timeline, which is almost as strong as what we're going through right now. You've already lived many lives, and I guarantee that I will keep you safe to live many more."

The TARDIS had a rough landing and the Doctor waited for her to stop shaking before continuing. "Let's see what awaits us, shall we?"

The Doctor sprinted to the door, and Clara followed at his heels. He pushed it open to reveal a beach on a cloudy day. His grin faded. "Doctor, where are we?" asked Clara timidly.

"Bad Wolf Bay," he responded with a gulp. "We're at Bad Wolf Bay…but how is that possible? We can't be here- it's just not possible! It would take massive quantities of space energy…"

"…like what we just experienced?" Clara finished. He fell silent for a moment.

"Why are we here, though?" the Doctor wondered aloud.

"I'm still very confused," Clara piped in.

"We're in a parallel universe of 21st century Europe on planet Earth, not the universe that Gallifrey ended up in," the Doctor explained, "but how?"

"I think I know," said a voice. Clara looked to her left to see a blonde woman standing by the water. The woman smiled. Clara then turned to the Doctor, who was staring at her with a look of utter shock.

All they could hear was the wind for several moments before the Doctor opened his new mouth and said, "Rose Tyler".


	2. Chapter 2

Clara and the Doctor followed Rose up the sand dune, where a truck was waiting for them. "Rose," the Doctor began, "could you please just tell me how the hell I am standing here right now?"

"It's a lot of fancy physics stuff," she responded, getting into the driver's seat. "Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey, you might describe it as. I know someone much better than myself who can explain it to you."

The Doctor slid into the passenger seat and closed the door, which left the back for Clara. As they started to drive though miles of fields in awkward silence, Clara noticed a rind on Rose's left hand while she held the steering wheel. Her curiosity got the best of her. "So, I'm assuming you used to travel with the Doctor?"

"Still do," Rose replied. "We drive around a lot and see new places, try to make Earth seem a bit less boring. He misses the TARDIS. We actually got married at Bad Wolf Bay."

"Rose, could you please stop calling him the Doctor?" said the Doctor. "He's not me."

"I know that." Rose laughed. "He's much better-looking. Although he has aged a bit since he's been human."

"Is my regeneration really THAT bad?" The Doctor sighed.

"You look fine," Clara lied, hoping to get some answers that made sense.

"Anyway," Rose continued, "when I asked him what he wanted his alias to be in this world, of course he said 'John Smith', but he told me I didn't have to call him that."

"That sounds like me," the Doctor said under his breath.

"So…is this your dead wife?" asked Clara.

"What?" responded Rose with confusion.

"Long story," the Doctor added quickly, "but no, Clara, this is not my wife, living or dead."

Clara was very lost, but remained silent for a couple hours admiring the scenery. Suddenly, the dirt road changed to pavement and she could see a familiar city in the distance, gradually getting closer. "Hang on," she said, "we're near London!"

"Is that where we are?" said the Doctor, waking up from a much-needed nap after the ordeal on Trenzalore. "I had no idea, since Rose won't tell me where we're going, or how we're here, or why we're here!"

"Patience!" Rose scolded. "We're almost there."

As they entered London with the hustle and bustle of average daily life, Clara had a thought. "So if this is a parallel universe to the real London, does that mean there's another me here?"

"For all we know, Clara, there could be five of you or none at all. Best not to try to find out. Rose almost got us killed a few years back…well, a few hundred years for me, but I still remember it!"

"But it all worked out in the end!" Rose argued. "For you too, actually." She smiled.

They took a few more turns and the Doctor finally realized where they were headed. "We're not going to…"

"…Torchwood?" Rose finished. "Of course!"

"Do you work there?" asked the Doctor.

"No," she replied, "but you do. My Doctor might only have one heart, but do you really think he can resist some good old alien hunting? Besides, he's a great asset to Dad's team with all his experience. He does have your memories, remember? At least up until when you and Donna left Bad Wolf Bay without saying goodbye…how is Donna, by the way?"

"She's great," the Doctor respond. "Got married just like she always wanted. God help that man."

Clara couldn't stand it anymore. "Ok, seriously, this isn't fair. Can I at least have a summary of what's going on?"

"Right now," said the Doctor, "I wish I knew. But from what I can deduce, we did indeed end up in a different universe, just not the one that I was expecting, where Rose here is apparently married to my hand clone who is working for a parallel Torchwood hunting aliens under the leadership of Rose's father, Pete, who is dead in the real universe, not that this isn't a real universe, but I just mean the other universe where I had to wipe the memories of my old companion Donna so that she wouldn't explode from having Time Lord energy inside her that helped create my hand clone that we're going to meet very soon in this universe, which isn't the one I was hoping to end up in."

"Got it," said Clara, who definitely did not get it.

As they pulled up in front of the skyscraper, the Doctor asked, "So, how's the kid?"

"Both of them are great!" Rose exclaimed, exiting the vehicle. "The boys get along so well."

Then, a young blonde boy came running out of the building and down the steps, holding a toy robot. "Mum!" he shouted excitedly. "Look what Dad made me today!"

Rose picked up the boy and turned to face the Doctor, who had an expression of surprise. "Doctor, I'd like you to meet your son, John Tyler Smith."


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor, Clara, Rose, and John stepped out of the elevator into a laboratory where the Doctor's younger hand clone with his messy brown hair was working diligently on analyzing a sample of alien DNA. He put the test tube down and whirled his chair around at the sound of footsteps. Rose set John down and he ran to sit beside his human father. The human Doctor smiled while the nonhuman Doctor stared at his parallel family, dumbfounded.

"But that's…you!" stated Clara. "You, uh, he married Queen Elizabeth! I was there!"

"You married Queen Elizabeth?" exclaimed Rose with a glare of jealousy.

"I don't seem to recall that," said the hand clone honestly.

"It was after I left you here," the Doctor interrupted. "Remember when you went to see Shakespeare with Martha Jones and pretended you knew why the queen hated you so you wouldn't look like more of an idiot than you already did?"

"It all makes sense now!" said the clone.

"So basically, my previous incarnation ran into your body, who had to marry the Queen and then leave her to fulfill one of those stupid promises that we always make, along with the incarnation we don't speak of, who we now can speak of because together we preserved Gallifrey in a painting, lost in another universe," explained the Doctor. "There was a crack in space and time that opened up to the universe where Gallifrey is now. The Time Lords sent some regeneration energy through to me to save me from the Daleks, who won't seem to go away no matter how hard I try. We followed the energy that the crack was emitting into the time vortex and ended up here."

"Well, you're in the right place," said his younger clone. "It wasn't the Time Lords who sent the energy through- it was us."

"What are you talking about?" the Doctor asked.

"That crack has been following you since shortly after you left us on Bad Wolf Bay, hasn't it?" Rose pointed out.

"Yes, but…" the Doctor started to say before a thought came to him.

"The link between us, Doctor," Rose explained, "the Bad Wolf…well, it never went away, even after you left. I knew it meant that you would need my help again someday, so Torchwood figured out a way to extract the link from my mind and put it into the crack. We had operatives observing your every move, though I asked them not to tell me what you were up to until the day you needed me." She smirked.

"I still don't fully understand," said the Doctor, frustrated. "Only a Time Lord could possess such a great amount of energy, and I heard them asking my name."

"That was us," continued Rose. "We wanted to make sure you weren't the Master or something before we sent the regeneration energy through to you."

"But where did you get it?" the Doctor insisted.

"Well, as it turns out, this hand still had a little bit of Time Lord left in it," the clone responded. "All the regeneration energy is gone now though, since I gave it to you."

The newly regenerated Doctor glanced at John, who was intently playing with his robot. "And John, is he…"

"…human?" the clone finished. "Yeah. We were worried about that a bit while Rose was pregnant, but he came out with one heart. Did she mention there's another one on the way?"

"A girl this time!" said Rose excitedly. "We're thinking about Sarah Jane, since it fits well with Smith, of course."

"Right, well…you've explained how we're here," said the Doctor, "but not why."

"Doctor!" scolded Clara. "Your wife is having a baby- aren't you going to congratulate her or something?"

"She's not my wife," the Doctor repeated. "I am not, nor will I ever be, a domestic."

"Wow, a couple hundred years has made me cranky!" exclaimed the hand clone. "I'm glad I had my operatives watching you instead of doing it myself because you would have made me rather frustrated. We love Rose, remember?"

The Doctor had a look of mild anger on his new face. Clara jumped in to break the tension. "Boys! Stop fighting! You're being a bad influence on your son! Now Rose, if you could give us a nice, reasonable explanation as to why we were brought here, that would be greatly appreciated…"

"Well, other than to inform you that you shouldn't spend the rest of your life searching for a lost planet since you weren't actually communicating with it," answered Rose, "we were hoping you might be able to help us with something. There's someone who's supposed to be in the other universe that got stuck here and it would be greatly appreciated if you could give him a lift…"

Suddenly, the door swung open behind them. "I heard the Doctor was in!" boomed a familiar voice.

The Doctor sighed and turned around slowly. "Hello again, Captain Jack."


	4. Chapter 4

As they all exited the building, the Doctor scolded Jack for messing with parallel universes again. "You can't just hop back and forth like a rabbit hopping on things and over things and you just can't have everything, Jack! I'm taking you back to reality and you're going to stay there."

"Hey, hold on," Jack interjected, "you can tell me not to hop over things, but hopping on things, now that's an invasion of my personal life…"

"Don't start," said the Doctor sternly. Clara giggled.

"Well, what am I supposed to do, Doctor?" Jack asked. "I can't die and living forever is going to get boring without new adventures! You should know that feeling."

"Hey, Doctor- you never told me I wasn't the only human who can't die!" said Clara.

Jack looked over at her as if noticing her for the first time. "Why, hello there! We haven't officially met…Captain Jack Harkness." He kissed her hand and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

Rose came down the steps behind them, while the hand clone Doctor and his son stood at the top, preparing to wave goodbye. "I've arranged for Mum to drive you back. I've watched you leave Bad Wolf Bay twice already and I'd rather not make it a third."

The Doctor glanced behind her at John, and then back to her. "You tell Mr. Smith that he's a lucky man to have you, Rose Tyler. And that he better be a good father. I watched over a town for hundreds of years and I suppose being a domestic wasn't so bad."

Rose smiled. "And you tell this wife of yours who may or may not be dead that she's a lucky woman. Take care, Doctor."

Jackie soon pulled up in an expensive convertible. "Oi! You lot get in right now. I had to leave Tony with Pete and I don't trust those two together for more than a couple hours!:

Jack and Clara got into the backseat while the Doctor hugged Rose for the final time. "Now," he said, "one more thing. I know it's fancy physics stuff, but you never told me exactly how Torchwood created a crack in the fabric of reality in the first place."

Jackie honked her horn. "Jack can explain that to you," Rose responded. She kissed him on the cheek. "And Doctor, I have one last request for you. Can you say goodbye this time? Like a proper goodbye."

The Doctor took one last look back at his parallel family. "Goodbye, Rose Tyler."


	5. Chapter 5

Jackie yapped for about an hour about every complaint she could possibly think of, from Pete's long workdays to Tony's lack of consideration by refusing to pick up his toys before bedtime. When she finally stopped to catch her breath, the Doctor asked Jack about the crack.

"You see Doctor, you know how sometimes transportation between universes can tend to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time and that's why I'm not supposed to do it?" Jack began. "Well, what if that hole was created in the shape of a crack?"

"It was you!" the Doctor exclaimed.

Jack chuckled. "Yup- appeared as soon as I came through. I just wanted to pop in and say hello. I was planning to hop back through and close it up, but then Rose looked into it and coincidentally saw that my escape route back to Earth led to where you were and refused to let me. Well, technically she didn't see you because you changed your face by that point, but she felt her Wolf instincts kick in and sensed that it was you. She decided to attach it to the little girl whose bedroom you showed up in so that you wouldn't get suspicious and try to close up a crack that was constantly following you around. Instead, she made it into a mystery worth solving: the crack that follows Amelia Pond. Not only did she provide you with a new companion so that you wouldn't be lonely, but she also had the perfect way to keep tabs on you. Now that I think about it, it's probably a good idea that I didn't hop back through because then I would've ended up in her room and in a few years that pretty redhead could've been my companion…"

"She's married, Jack," said the Doctor.

"I know, I know," Jack replied assuredly. "The husband came through here once. He was in a bit of shock, so we sedated him for a bit. It was hard for Torchwood to keep the crack open after we sent him back through, but we had a good team of operatives maintaining it. We thought the whole centurion thing might be a nice touch, as well, since we noticed you guys were in Rome at that point."

"Why didn't you come sooner?" asked the Doctor. "You all stood there and watched the Pandorica and the Silence and you could've come and helped anytime. Why now?"

"Rose kept sayin' it wasn't the 'right time'," said Jackie. "She said she'd feel it when it was the right time with all her fancy Bad Wolf stuff…"

"…and behold, it was! You were getting pretty old in that other body of yours!" Jack finished. "Well, not that you don't still look it…"

"That's enough," the Doctor snapped. "I like this body and there will be no more mocking it."

There was an eerie fifteen minutes or so of silence before Jackie chatted with herself for the rest of the way about the scenery and random thoughts that came to her mind. It seemed like ages instead of hours until they arrived at the bay. The Doctor was relieved to see his TARDIS waiting for him. He stepped out of the car with Jack and Clara and ignored Jackie waving as he headed for his beautiful blue box. New adventures awaited him, and he would never stop searching for Gallifrey.


End file.
